How to showcase yourself to fellow lawyers, increase referrals and grow your reputation.

For 14 years, at East Park Communications, we’ve been working with local law societies across the country to create media channels they can use to communicate more effectively with their members. These web-based blogs offer solicitors, barristers and legal service providers the chance to raise their profile by contributing content.

Whatever your specialism, producing useful hard law articles is a great way of showcasing your expertise, increasing the chance of referrals and raising your profile locally as an expert in your field.

Local societies need a good balance of content in their newsletters and briefings to members: hard law, which helps practitioners give up-to-date advice, has been in short supply in recent years, but lawyers are hungry for it. 

Contributing non-legal content can still raise your profile and keep you in the limelight. But your subject needs to be something a little extraordinary - not just an event held at a hotel that raised money for a local charity. Running a marathon, a freefall parachute jump or climbing K2 is more likely to generate interest. 

A solicitor once wrote about his weekend job as an Elvis impersonator. The story became the highlight of the autumn issue of Norfolk Law magazine.

If you have a news section on your website, consider any articles which are likely to interest local lawyers. Share your news through your local law society, but not in a self-promotional way: you want to be seen as a firm that’s excited about what it’s doing without having to shout about it.

If you work for a university or the council, look for any new developments or events, and see if your local law society would like to publish your news and expert opinion. This is an opportunity to get straight to local solicitors in a unique and focused way.

Here are three recent articles that show the various ways you can become involved:

• a hard law article <add link: http://www.bibliobulletin.com/article/item/read/185/Parliament’s-latest-proposals-for-divorce-law-reform.html> from trainee family solicitor Holly Mullen of Hawkins Family Law in Milton Keynes about reforms to the divorce law
• a shorter news update <add link: https://peterboroughlawsocietybulletin.com/article/item/read/262/Anglia-Ruskin-University-launches-Law-Clinic-in-Peterborough.html> about Anglia Ruskin University opening up a new law clinic in Peterborough
• a short article <add link: https://peterboroughlawsocietybulletin.com/article/item/read/260/Buckles’-Sleepout-success-raises-more-than-£2000-to-help-homeless.html> about the members of Buckles Solicitors who braved the elements to sleep out in the streets of Peterborough in January to raise money for a homeless charity.

If you would like to raise your profile and increase referrals to your firm by contributing content, get in touch with us, or contact your local society.

Simon Castell is sales manager at East Park Communications, a company specialising in providing free on- and off-line magazines to the legal profession. www.eastparkcommunications.com  info@eastparkcommunications.com